peter@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Peter Schroeder) (10/24/89)
I am working on an HP9000/835 HP-UX 3.1 and really like the power it gives me. However, I've had a few frustrating experiences regarding the availability of software development tools. The last few weeks I was told twice that specific pieces of software were unavailable to me because I happen to be using an HP machine and not a SUN. Mind you, I do not want to switch to a SUN, but I am getting so frustrated with the lack of tools that I am starting to wish I had a SUN. How come that is so? The particular occasion that comes to mind is the availability of the Renderman developemnt tools from Pixar which can be gotten for SGI's (sic) and SUN's but not for HP. The other one was Objectworks for C++ from ParcPlace Systems. Sorry, available for the SUN but not the HP... I am trying to develop high performance graphics software in C++ on an HP... Does HP realize what a bitch it is to develop in C++ without any kind of support???? The other day SUN anounced on the net that they have a C++ 2.0 compatible compiler available with support for C++ in yacc, vi, ctags, and dbxtool ( their window driven frontend for the debugger ). How come we don't get to hear this from HP???? Seriously, I love this machine, but the next time I can influence a purchase decision I will look very closely at SUN's offerings! PLEASE DO SOMETHING!!!!! It would be interesting to hear whether others have had similar experiences or whether it is just me... Sincerely Peter Schroeder peter@media-lab.media.mit.edu
bla@hpcupt1.HP.COM (Brad Ahlf) (10/26/89)
Peter, I will contact you by email. I would like to make sure that your concerns are fully and properly addressed and that all of the proper people get involved. I expect that you will soon feel a lot better. If anyone else has concerns similiar to Peter's please contact me by email and I will try to insure that all of your concerns are addressed too. Brad Ahlf HP Languages Technical Support ...hplabs!hpda!bla bla%hpda@hplabs.HP.COM
daryl@hpcllla.HP.COM (Daryl Odnert) (10/27/89)
> The other day SUN anounced on the net that they have a C++ 2.0 compatible > compiler available with support for C++ in yacc, vi, ctags, and dbxtool > ( their window driven frontend for the debugger ). How come we don't get > to hear this from HP???? Please note, I cannot comment on any products that may or may not be under development at HP. However, you may be interested to learn that a representative from HP proposed and convened the committee to adopt an ANSI C++ standard. I think this shows that HP has an interest in the C++ language. Daryl Odnert Hewlett-Packard California Language Lab
bla@hpcllak.HP.COM (Brad Ahlf) (10/27/89)
Peter, I will contact you by email. I would like to make sure that your concerns are fully and properly addressed and that all of the proper people get involved. I expect that you will soon feel a lot better. If anyone else has concerns similiar to Peter's please contact me by email and I will try to insure that all of your concerns are addressed too. Brad Ahlf HP Languages Technical Support ...hplabs!hpda!bla bla%hpda@hplabs.HP.COM P.S. This is a re-posting but from a different system. Evidently my usual notes system is not broadcasting right now. So excuse any duplication.
raveling@isi.edu (Paul Raveling) (10/28/89)
In article <875@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>, peter@mit-amt.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Peter Schroeder) writes: > > However, I've had a few frustrating experiences regarding the availability > of software development tools. ... It's my impression that new software is often available sooner on Suns, but that software quality is generally better on HP's for any component available on both that's an HP product. Third party software is often built for Suns first, and is more difficult to port to HP's. This can be blamed on quirks of Sun's Unix environment as easily as on HP's Unix environment, and could easily change if software vendors start using more HP's for initial product development. Although I use and support HP's at ISI, I'm occasionally asked to help with problems, usually X11-related, on Suns. In addition I occasionally make and test some of my own software on Suns before distributing it publicly. In other words my exposure to Suns is limited, but even such limited use shows up minor problems ranging from terminal setup to C compiler bugs. The last time I helped someone trying to get X11 up on a Sun we stumbled through several atrocities of OS behavior that left rebooting as the only recourse. There are a few Sun tools, such as perfmon, that I'd dearly love to have on HP's. In general though, given a choice of an HP or a Sun, I'd pick the HP. Don't forget the others though -- the DECstation 3100 seems like a good platform except for its screwed up keyboard design. Maybe DS3100's or actual MIPS machines would be worth checking out also. ---------------- Paul Raveling Raveling@isi.edu
raveling@isi.edu (Paul Raveling) (10/28/89)
P.S. to last post: Hopefully Sun's new products improve this, but I've never seen a slower X11 display server. When I was using a 9000/350, the Sun 4 monochrome server was about the same speed. We don't have a color Sun 4, a color Solbourne 110 was much slower than the 350. One of our users with a color Sun 3 wanted to use X11 but never used the color server -- he said it was far too slow to be usable. Without actually knowing about Sun's internals, but having seen similar situations elsewhere, I surmise that they may have made a key mistake in the architecture of their frame buffers. If this is the case they will have poured lots of blood, sweat, and tears into their new X11 & News servers, and this will help, but the architecture problem will always handicap their performance. This is more important than it may sound. A paper by someone at IBM a few years ago investigated how interactive response time affected productivity, and found a very significant nonlinear relationship when response time approached and exceeded about 1/2 second -- slow response is magnified into proportionally MUCH lower productivity. ---------------- Paul Raveling Raveling@isi.edu
is813cs@pyr.gatech.EDU (Cris Simpson) (10/30/89)
In article <10309@venera.isi.edu> raveling@isi.edu (Paul Raveling) writes: > > This is more important than it may sound. A paper by someone > at IBM a few years ago investigated how interactive response > time affected productivity, and found a very significant > nonlinear relationship when response time approached and > exceeded about 1/2 second -- slow response is magnified > into proportionally MUCH lower productivity. Does anyone have this reference? It sounds like great ammunition for the next "Why we need new, faster machines" battle. Thanks, cris -- || Gee, do you think it'd help if I plugged in both ends of this cable? || Cris Simpson Computer Engineer VA Rehab R&D Center GATech Atlanta,GA is813cs@pyr.gatech.edu ...!{Almost Anywhere}!gatech!gitpyr!is813cs